Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Our friends at Boundary Road (414 H St) have decided to open for lunch on Labor Day, Monday, September 2. They are typically closed on Mondays, but will be open for lunch on this federal holiday.

They're also planning a "Congressional Brunch" for the following Monday, September 9, which is the day Congress gets back in session. They will be serving brunch and unlimited punch from 11 - 3 and the bar will be open all day. Sounds like a fun way to spend the day if you don't have to be at work.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

We've been pining for RedRocks Pizzeria to bring their terrific Neapolitan style pizzas to H Street for a couple years now. Their team looked at a handful of H Street locations -- and was a finalist to fill the space that will soon become Maketto -- before finding the perfect spot at 1348 H Street. The building is double wide, recently renovated, and boasts an open skylight retractable roof as well as front open façade. After various delays, RedRocks H Street will open once they've finished training staff, and you're going to want to check the place out early and often.

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1st floor booths, center bar with 20 taps and flat screen TVs

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RedRocks already has a few locations around the DC area, but plans to treat H Street as its flagship. The H Street location will be the group's largest and will feature executive chef Angel Mendoza who has overseen the menu at their other locations, 18 beers and two wines on tap, three levels of food and drink, and an outdoor roof deck with an indoor-outdoor bar and Capitol views.

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View from the roof deck include the Atlas Performing Arts Center and the Capitol

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A recent tour of the space reveals a large and attractive environment, featuring a good deal of exposed brick, high ceilings, and abundant natural light. The roof is all glass and retractable and is the largest of its kind on the East Coast and the management team hopes to keep it open most of the time. The large space is one of several features that are likely to be received as family friendly in a neighborhood that increasingly boasts a large number of families with young children. RedRocks H Street also has a large private dining room with a full bar and additional pizza oven, which will make it easy to accommodate large private parties. It feels spacious and bright, but they've managed to maintain a comfortable ambiance.

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2nd floor dining room has ample space and natural light

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Retractable roof is huge, welcomes tons of light and will be open as much as possible

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Co-owners Doug Baj and James O'Brien have installed neighborhood resident Ken Fulkroad as general manager. RedRocks will be open daily, offering lunch and dinner with brunch coming soon (yes, there will be bottomless mimosas). Brick ovens are located on the first and second floors and will continue churning out fresh pies for late night dining. Reservations are certainly not required, but can be made via their website through City Eats. Look for them to open quietly and to welcome neighbors in for brick oven fired pizzas before the end of next week.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

School-Within-School (SWS) will move to the Goding Elementary School building that previously housed the Prospect Learning Center at 10th & F Street, NE later this month.

SWS currently has the highest percentage of in-bounds neighborhood children attending it of any school in Ward 6. Unfortunately, when DCPS decided to move the school to its new location at 10th & F, they dropped the boundaries and the proximity preference that provided an advantage to neighborhood children in the enrollment process. Already this year, two children who live directly across the street from the school applied through the lottery and were denied the opportunity to participate in the school community. Children should be able to attend the public school that they can see from their living room. The neighborhood school that draws most heavily from the neighborhood should not be unilaterally changed to no longer allow neighborhood children to attend it. Join your neighbors, ANC6A, and Councilmember Wells in support of restoring neighborhood preference at SWS and sign the petition to ensure SWS continues to be a neighborhood serving public school.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

After much neighborhood agitating and far too many incidents where bikes got stuck in H Street streetcar track, DDOT proposed bike improvements to G Street and I Streets NE. H Street was not a viable option because it had already been recently redone and the streetcar tracks were positioned in a manner that did not leave room for bike lanes. ANC6A and ANC6C held a joint committee meeting in June and both ANCs voted unanimously to request that DDOT implement "Option 2", which features contraflow bike lanes on G & I Street. Contraflow lanes are bike lanes that run opposite of traffic. Both streets will also have shared lane markings (aka "sharrows") that indicate to vechicular traffic that bicycles are welcome to share the flow of traffic, thus allowing bike traffic in both directions on G & I Streets. The hope is that this will benefit the safety of the neighborhood's many bike users and will be of particular benefit in steering bicycle traffic off of H Street where the streetcar tracks have snagged far too many bicycle wheels and caused unnecessary accidents. DDOT and its streetcar team report that the lanes should be installed this fall, so that they are available when streetcar service commences. We've asked DDOT to address the need for repaving on G Street prior to installation, but have not received an update since they told us they would investigate that matter in May. Hopefully, they'll be able to address this as some blocks on G Street -- especially the 500 and 600 blocks -- are badly in need of repaving and currently provide for a very bumpy ride. Regardless, we're looking forward to seeing the improved bike infrastructure installed in the coming months.

For more background on the process, see this GGW post by neighborhood ANC Commissioner Tony Goodman describing the four options that DDOT presented to the community.

FreshFarm Markets -- the folks who run our terrific H Street Farmers Market on Saturday mornings (as well as the Sunday morning Dupont Circle Farmers Market and a host of others around town) has opened a Sunday farmers market outside of Union Market, which runs each week from 10 am - 2 pm. Their release and the producer line up for the market is below.

FRESHFARM Markets, the non-profit that operates 10 producer only markets in the D.C. Region and Edens, the real estate owner and developer behind Union market, joined forced to open Sunday farmers market on July 21. The market (Sundays, 10am to 2pm) is operated outside Union Market on Neal place and has 11 farmers and producers, all highlighting the best foods and flavors of the Chesapeake watershed. In order to lower economic barriers to fresh local foods, FRESHFARM Markets is offering Match Dollars to shoppers using their SNAP (Food Stamps/EBT), WIC, and SFMNP checks - for $15 spent in these nutritional benefits, FRESHFARM will give the shopper an additional $15 FREE Market Dollars to spend at market.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Chuck Murphy plans to open a shoe store called The Wandering Shoe on the eastern end of H Street. To help ensure his succeess, he's asking neighborhood residents to participate in this survey to help him provide us with the type of shoes and apparel that we want to see for sale on H Street.

Chuck has an extensive background with over 10 years in retail shoes and will carry chidren's, men's and women's shoes, along with accessories and footcare/shoecare products. He explains his decision to open a shoe store on H Street as arising from his love of retail and retails shoes and his love of H Street. He loves shoes and once owned 72 pairs of Chuck Taylors. He views shoe sales as the best use of his psychology degree and his desire to help others, noting that he finds it especially rewarding to help someone with foot trouble find the right fitting shoes. Chuck first came to H Street because of family connections to Jason Martin who has ownership stakes in Sticky Rice, Dangerously Delicious Pies, Rock and Roll Hotell, and Chupacabra. He's especially excited about the energy of the corridor's eastern end where he hopes to open The Wandering Shoe soon.

The Wandering Shoe's will be a a shoe store with adult's and children's shoes that doesn't require a trip to upper Northwest or the suburbs (there are few, if any, quality shoe stores that market to families east of upper Northwest.) Chuck feels parents and kids deserve better quality and not in the suburbs. TWS will sell comfort and fashion footwear in an exciting environment and will stock shoes in hard to fit sizes, including smaller and larger shoes as well as narrow and wide options.
The two level space TWS expects to use is large and would allow for a variety of shoe options to be available on site. TWS will feature many American made or American designed shoes as well as some international options.

Help bring this new form of retail to H Street and help it succeed by filling out this survey, so TWS has what it needs to best serve our market.